1. Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a technique for processing document data in an image forming system including at least one image forming apparatus and a server.
2. Description of the Related Art
With a conventional technique related to an image forming apparatus, in a case where processing required for printing or preview display cannot be performed in the image forming apparatus, printing or preview display is enabled through processing by using an external server (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-131382).
In a system using the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-131382, there is a case where the image forming apparatus requests the server to process document data and, afterwards, requests again the server to process the same document data. In this case, since the image forming apparatus retransmits the same document data to the server, performance degradation due to communication occurs, resulting in overall performance degradation. In a method devised to prevent the performance degradation, the server stores document data, the image forming apparatus confirms, before transmitting the document data, whether the document data has once been transmitted to the server. If the document data has been once transmitted to the server, the apparatus does not retransmit the document data to the server. However, processing for confirming whether document data has been transmitted before to the server causes a load of confirmation processing, and the document data needs to be once spooled in the image forming apparatus. For this reason, performing confirmation processing on the entire document data before transmitting document data causes overall performance degradation.